It is true that teenage intimacy does not care for the calendar. Teenagers hook up, make out, and do all kinds of stupid things (including getting pregnant) all the time.

But should that mean that a nation’s policy and legal framework should be made solely based on their emotions, without considering the larger psychological, social, cultural, economic, and even political context?

Debate rages over the proposal to reduce the age of consent from 18 to 16 under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The Supreme Court is hearing the plea.

Advocate Indira Jaising and others who want the age of consent lowered argue that it would decriminalise consensual adolescent relationships and uphold privacy rights under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Fair enough. But at what cost?

The Union government’s affidavit cautions that it could “open the floodgates to trafficking and other forms of child abuse under the garb of assent". The 22nd Law Commission of........

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